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e target, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. US jets leading the bombing campaign from the Arabian Gulf, but their mission could be about to change with a new US president at the helm. I'm Reuters' Emily Wither on the USS Eisenhower. Since the deployment in June, there have been over 1,200 missions from here targeting the Islamic State and its infrastructure.

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One of the big foreign policy headaches for any next US president will be whether to take a more aggressive stance in the wider Syrian conflict. Over 400,000 people have been killed in the country since the conflict began. Much of it now looks like an urban wasteland. If the US is to get more involved it will need to use more air power, but as one pilot told me Syria is much more complex than Iraq.

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>> Working in Syria is a little bit tougher, you've got a lot of different factions there that you have to deal with. It does get challenging, communications can be tough without going into details.>> Simply put, Syria's skies are crowded. Russia backing the Syrian regime has two airbases where it's stationed surface to air missiles.

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Coalition jets can only operates in certain areas. And the country is carved up between Islamic State, rebels, Kurds, and the Syrian Army.>> This is what we have to do,>> Hillary Clinton says she'll enforce a no-fly zone over Syria in order to stop the regime targeting heavily populated civilian areas like Aleppo.

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Under that plan Russian strike aircraft and Syrian government helicopters would risk being shot down.>> I disagree.>> You disagree with your running mate?>> I think you have to knock out ISIS.>> Donald Trump has blasted her plans, warning it would lead to World War III because of the potential conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.

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He says defeating Islamic State is a higher priority than persuading the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, to step down. In practical terms, both open the same door to the greatly enlarged conflict that'll drag the US deeper into the Syrian quagmire.